Shun Akiyama
"Money changes peoples lives, I just like to see it happen up close and personal." Shun Akiyama is one of the four playable characters of Yakuza 4 as well as 5. A successful Entrepreneur called the "Lifeline of Kamurocho". He runs Sky Finance, a loan agency that offers loans not on the basis of their credit rating but through their commitment to get that loan. When the skeletons of the past comes out of the closet, Akiyama becomes the first witness of an old grudge between the law and the families of the Tojo and Ueno Seiwa. History "The bank I worked at set up and cut me loose. My woman I loved walked out on me." At young age, he was a Golden Japanese Boy to summarize his early life who had very little struggle. He entered Touto University and graduated in top-honors with a business degree at the top of his class. He quickly became the top Bank Employee in the investment department and he rose up in rank and even started dating a fellow employee named Eri and was eventually engaged. However, disaster struck at Spring of 2005 during his have-it-all-perfect life. He was fired from his job with charges of "Internal Theft", due to a fact that 1 million yen was deposited in to his saving account, and the Touto-bank determined that he had stolen the money. The money was part of the laundering scheme by Jingu before the events of Yakuza 1. Akiyama was innocent, however there was no way for him to win a political battle against a powerful bank corporation. He spent all his life savings trying prove himself innocent, but soon he became homeless and his fiancée left him in the obsession of finding out who had stolen the money. One day during the winter of 2006 he was sleeping on streets of Theatre Square. The 10 billion yen which was stolen from Niskihiyama and Jingu and hidden away in the Safe of the 60th floor Millenium Tower, rained down in front of him after the explosion at Millenium Tower. Akiyama grabbed as much money as he could during this "second chance that god has given him". However , he nearly loses that second chance when thugs attacked him and stole the money. Arai, seeing the man's plight retrieve his money from the muggers and Akiyama felt indebted to Arai for the act of kindness. The money he got was the exact amount he was claimed to have stolen. Akiyama was a genius when it comes to investment and money and knew the money he got would never be able to bring him the means to get a decent business. Investing in Day Trading, he went for trades to that provided supply to demand rather than silver bullet deals and slowly built his fortune. When he amassed enough money, he began expanding on that ideal and invested into businesses that he knew would fit his standards and opens up several hostess clubs in the city. Despite that, he still remembers Arai as his benefactor and hope that he would one day become the head of the Tojo clan and bring peace to the troubled clan. Yakuza 4 "'' Just the other day, a Yakuza I have been backing up and he kills a man, then disappears. It got me thinking if I should bother anymore"'' During one collection run at the behest of Hana, he runs into Kido, Arai's underling and loyal ally. When Ihara a member of the Ueno Seiwa, causes trouble at one of the hostesses clubs that belongs to Arai at Elnard. He quickly provokes a fight with Akiyama and loses as Akiyama buys enough time for Arai to confront. In desperation, he pulls out a gun at them, wounding Arai. Returning to his office, he finds Arai had murdered Ihara and Akiyama was taken in for questioning and later cleared of his involvement in the attack. However, Sky Finance was put under surveillance by the police for that period which grates on Akiyama's nerves on why he made that decision. During this time, he meets Lily, a woman who resembles his lost flame Eri. Her request was a 100 million yen loan, as a test she has to earn 3 million yen at Elise, a net loss for Akiyama as he know he is unlikely to recover the loan. During this time, he sees many clients of his being murdered one by one. All who them had connections to the Shibata Family and suspect it was the work of a woman. Around that time, Sky Finance was also attacked and he rescues Kido from the Hatsushiba Clan. During the second day of Lily's test, they were attacked by Shibata's thugs as Akiyama fends them off. Lily earns the required amount and Akiyama explains his intentions on why he loans the money to people as he sees how money can buy happiness and dreams. Wanting to see Lily's dream fulfilled he gives her the money for the test's completion but not before asking if she was responsible for the deaths of several Shibata's men which Lily denies. Returning to his office, he checks up on Hana who was furious at how he gave at 100 million yen to someone who resembled his ex fiancee and chases her as she announces her resignation. After a fight with one of Majima's goons harassing his hostess club to find out about where Lily was, he learns the truth behind Lily who's real name is Yasuko Saejima... Sometime after the incident between Majima and Akiyama, he receives the money back from Tanimura who had taken the 100 million yen loan from Lily as she was going to Okinawa to find her brother before his execution (however this rendered moot as Taiga had escaped) and tells him that the last surviving Shibata family member was located at a dockside hiding place to escape from the assassins who have been silencing Shibata members. Sometime after Tanimura finds out about the truth, they meet again at Homeland when Munakata and Katsuragi make their decisive plays against them, Sky Finance is held under direct investigation as he was thrown out of his office under suspicion of coercing people to take his loans. With few options, they contact Yasuko to meet up with them to get to Purgatory where she can meet up with Taiga. However they get intercepted by Kiryu and gets beaten up by him and only to realize not even Purgatory is safe from Katsuragi as both were kidnapped. After the events of the Ueno Seiwa was handled, Akiyama knew the reason why the mess started was over the money as all of their rivals had a stake in it. Using the massive fortune he accumulated over the years as bait, he uses the opportunity to defeat Arai. With Date's help, a news article that exposes Munakata's corruption was revealed to the people who was too busy collecting the money. In one final act of vengeance, Munakata shoots Akiyama only for his last bit of money to protect him. Arai goes to prison for his involvement in the murders as Akiyama reunites with Hana who have lost a great deal of weight. Yakuza 5 After exposing corruption of Touto Bank and Kamurocho Police Department of 26 years of money laundering to public with Kiryu, Tanimura, Saejima and Date, Akiyama quietly returned to his non-profit business of managing Sky Finance company. Two year has passed and during this time, he has decided to expand his business into Kansai, Soutenburi as well due to increased client arriving from all over the Japan, in particular from Sotenburi. However, the genius of finance and business lacked what is called "organizational skill", because he always lets his assistant Hana do that work. Therefore, he was struggling to open the office to public for almost 1 year since he bought the office. While he was taking usual afternoon nap in his messy Sotenburi office, his cell phone which he forgot to turn-off goes off. The call was from Horie, who was assistant of Paku Mirei, the president of Dina-Chair Talent Agency, the client that he loaned 300,000,000 yen about 1 year ago. Horie informed Akiyama that his boss Paku committed suicide and the 300,000,000 yen which was in the safe was also stolen. Akiyama rushed to Dina-Chair office immediately and to his surprise he re-unites with Sawamura Haruka, who was Pop-Idol-Star-Ready-To-Be that happens to be member by Dina-Chair Talent Agency. Haruka believed that her boss Paku Mirei was murdered instead of suicide, and requests Akiyama to join him on his investigation. As regretfully, he agrees that Haruka can join him on his investigation. In addition, after catching up with Haruka he realized it was his duty to fulfill Haruka and Paku dream of being on center stage of Tokyo-Dome Concert, because he knew that was 3,000,000,000 yen was for. It was not all about money, it was about fulfilling everyone's dream. Appearance Personality Fighting Style Loan Tests Throughout the events of Yakuza 4, Akiyama offers loans to certain people to test their commitment to find. Tasks range from community service to working for him to pay back a portion of the money if there is no tasks . * Shiobara - The first client the player meets in Akiyama's substory, Shiobara was an aimless entrepreneur who struggled to establish his own successful business. In his initial test, he unsuccessful tried to complete three seperate tasks which Akiyama knew he would fail. Tackling Shiobara's refusal to lay off people and taking the blame for the company's failure he makes him go work for Paradise Advertising which was in need of layoffs. While he passed the first test, he again approach Akiyama for another loan after he loses his passion and his second test was to take a single mundane item and make money out it. Here he teaches his secret to success was not by seeking the golden opportunity but to satisfy the needs of others. * Unnamed Woman - ''A middle aged woman who asks Akiyama for a loan to sustain her family expenses, given three hours to find a job. She fails to commit fully and seeks out the obvious jobs and refused to make the sacrifices needed to secure a loan and fails to get a loan. * ''Shoko Muto - ''A single woman who was in need of money to pay off her outstanding debts for her extravagant lifestyle. Akiyama hands her a million yen as a "gift" and secretly surveillance her spending habits with the money she has acquired. Unwilling to spend extravagantly with Akiyama's money, she passes the test as she was willing let go of her reckless spending habits. * ''Setsuko Arima - ''the wife of President Arima, a loan agency owner similar to Akima, using Shiobara to lure away clients from Akiyama. Akiyama gets a request for a loan from his wife and puts her through the same process as the Unnamed woman, she was so desperate for the loan that she goes to Elise to seek any kind of work. After learning about Arima's situation Akiyama reasons with the husband who decides to start anew from his corporate raiding past. * ''Hanaoka - A client of Akiyama during the events of Dead Souls. Saddled with debt due to having to care for so many cats. He succeeds by giving the cats away to other people who wanted a pet cat of their own. * ''Juri - ''A hostess working at Elise, while officially she was trying to earn money to sustain her finances, the loan in question was to help her boyfriend's gambling debts. * ''Kazami -'' An estranged father, he sought out a loan so his daughter can go to university. He succeeded on the condition that he personally gave the tuition money to his daughter. * ''Tsukimura ''- A man literally down on his luck, he comes to Akiyama for a loan on the condition he turns the money given into a profit only to be saddled with a worse losing streak. His lucky streak saved him from failing to meet the conditions of the loan when he bet on a low odds horse and won. 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